


Steel Cage Death Match

by orphan_account



Category: Canadian 6 Degrees, Slap Shot 2: Breaking the Ice (2002), Suspicious River (2000)
Genre: Consent Issues, Crack, Drug Use, Metafiction, Other, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-15
Updated: 2012-08-15
Packaged: 2017-11-12 04:50:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/486906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are two men in the octagon.  You have to shoot one of them.  You have to have sex with the one who lives.  Fortunately, they gave you a tranquilizer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Steel Cage Death Match

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mergatrude](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mergatrude/gifts).



> An appreciation gift for mergatrude, for organizing the [ C6D Midsummer Santa Gift Exchange 2012](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/c6d_midsummer_2012). I know she really, really wanted to see something derived from one or both of these works, so here it is.

They give you a gun before you go into the octagon. It has a full clip, they tell you, in case your first shot isn’t true. They dress you in a denim miniskirt and a floral blouse. And give you a tranquilizer. They curl your hair in a way that certain women still consider stylish, although you mostly associate it with times when ABBA was still touring.

You have all the power, they tell you. There will be two men, and you get to shoot only one of them. The one who survives gets to have sex with you. Those are your choices; that’s your power. Under the haze of the tranquilizer, it all seems perfectly reasonable.

The octagon is exactly the way you’ve always imagined such a thing would be. You’ve made jokes before: at parties, with your friends, at school. Laughed while you suggested that a friendly squabble over which restaurant to go to for lunch be settled by a steel cage death match.

The tranquilizer isn’t so strong that you can still laugh at the idea. It’s just strong enough to numb you, to make you feel like you’ve been numb all your life, or at least since you suffered some kind of horrible childhood trauma.

The two men waiting for you look similar but not identical. One’s hair has been blow-dried to a fare-thee-well, and he has an air of predatory curiosity. The other has hair with plenty of volume, but more gel, and his manner suggests that he isn’t sure if he’s still drunk from the night before or just hungover. Both are smoking.

The guy with gel wanders up to you. “I like your hair,” he says. You thank him for the compliment; you do have nice hair. “Is that your natural color?” he asks. It’s an odd question, but so many people dye their hair these days you figure it’s acceptable. “It is,” you tell him. He leans in closer. “A lot of women say they don’t dye their hair,” he says, “but they do.”

“I don’t,” you tell him. 

“Why don’t you prove it to me?” he asks. “Let me take a look down below; see if the carpet matches the drapes?”

Wordlessly, you point to the corner he came from and he goes to it, muttering, “Dyke.”

The other man comes up to you, studies you. You stare back, still out of it from the tranquilizer. He kisses you, his mouth tasting like cigarettes and beer. It’s a rough kiss, but it has an undertone that's more curiosity than anything else. He draws back from you, looks at you consideringly, then slaps you across the face, avidly studying your reaction. You let your head turn under the blow, feeling nothing at all, then point to the corner he came from. And he goes to it.

By now you know who they are. And you certainly don’t want to have sex with either one of them. Sex is all the first one wants, you know, although his approach suggests that what he really wants is to get shot down again and again. The other one wants more. He wants your body, both for himself and for others and, ultimately, for profit. If you have a soul, he wants that, but it’s not a requirement for him.

But what he wants, the one who wants so much more than a quick screw…you know he’ll go to a lot of trouble to get it. So you go up to the first one, still in his corner. You whisper in his ear, telling him what to do.

He kisses you, too, because you told him to. Messy, sloppy, tongue out before your lips have even touched. He grabs your head and pushes you down with one hand while the other undoes his jeans. He’s not being remotely gentle or considerate. So he’s doing it just like you told him to.

Suddenly you back off, putting on an expression of fear, or at least expressing as much fear as you can manage through the tranquilizer haze. “Fuck off, pervert,” you say, your voice quavering despite your bold words.

The other man is at your side in an instant to comfort you. “I’m real sorry about before,” he says. His voice is slightly higher than the one you just backed away from. Has a slight western twang. “I shouldn’t have hit a pretty girl like you. I don’t know why I did that. My old man…” he trails off. “I just…feel so damn bad about it,” he says. “Especially with what that guy tried to do to you.”

The tranquilizer makes it easy for you to suppress your revulsion at his touch. “Can you protect me?” you ask the man holding you. The man who hit you and apologized for it.

“Yeah, I’ll protect you,” he promises. “Pretty girl like you…of course I’ll protect you.”

“Prove it,” you say and hand him the gun. He shoots the first man; kills him right in front of you, in front of everyone.

“Thanks,” you say. 

“No problem. I’d like to protect you always,” he offers. You take the gun from him, careful not to touch the hot barrel.

“That’s all right,” you tell him. “I’m pretty sure I can protect myself,” you add just before you shoot him. In front of everyone.

You did what you were supposed to. You shot one of them, and one of them only.

**Author's Note:**

> My knowledge of "Slap Shot 2: Breaking the Ice" comes from the ten minutes of it I was able to watch before turning it off and spending the next hour and a half trying to get in touch with Paul Newman's ghost. Weeks later, he got back to me with a "No comment. Now or ever."
> 
> ETA: Palmberg's dialogue is lifted verbatim and wholesale from "Slap Shot 2: Breaking the Ice" written by Broderick Miller and Nancy Dowd (I changed one word). Gary Jensen's dialogue is paraphrased from lines spoken by that character in "Suspicious River," written by Lynne Stopkewich, whose adaptation was, for the lines paraphrased in this story, very faithful to the dialogue in the novel by Laura Kasischeke.


End file.
